A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume One: The Roots of the Problem and the Person

John P. Meier

ISBN 10: 0225667010 / ISBN 13: 9780225667011

Published by Doubleday ABRL., USA, 1991

About this Item

HARDBACK IN JACKET 1991. x+484 pages. 24x16cm. Clean & tight. No inscriptions. Flat pages. Jacket has a little edge wear. Front flap is not price-clipped: $25. Jacket is now under clear removable covers. Dispatched ROYAL MAIL FIRST CLASS with TRACKING next working day or sooner securely boxed in cardboard. ref H552.

Seller Inventory # 035620

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume One: The Roots of the Problem and the Person
• Publisher: Doubleday ABRL., USA
• Publication Date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0225667010
• ISBN 13: 9780225667011
• Binding: Hard Boards
• Edition: Fourth Impression
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

In this definitive book on the real, historical Jesus, one of our foremost biblical scholars meticulously sifts the evidence of 2,000 years to portray neither a rural magician nor a figure of obvious power, but a marginal Jew.

From Kirkus Reviews

Meier (Religion/Catholic Univ. of America), a Catholic priest, offers a vigorously honest, skeptical, and scholarly attempt to discover the historical Jesus. The author poses an intriguing hypothetical: ``suppose that a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic...hammered out a consensus document on who Jesus of Nazareth was.'' Meier tries to create such a ``consensus document'' by examining the fundamental facts of Jesus' life (while excluding those aspects of Jesus' biography that are premised on tenets of Christian belief, like the Resurrection). In this, the first volume of a two-part work, Meier carefully conducts an exegesis of the ``Roots of the Problem'' (the New Testament texts, which are not primarily historical works; the apocryphal gospels; and the fleeting references in the works of Josephus, Tacitus, and other pagan and Jewish writers that constitute the entire historical record of Jesus), and an analysis of the ``Roots of the Person'' (in which Meier brings hermeneutic tools to bear on the birth, development, and early years of Jesus). Meier points out Jesus' historical ``marginality''--his peripheral involvement in the society, history, and culture of his age--that ironically underscores the central position he has occupied in Western culture in the centuries since he died. Rife with scholarly terminology, and thus slow going for the nonspecialist--but, still, a superb examination of a fascinating historical problem. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.